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chimney

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: çhymney

English

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 chimney on Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English chymeney, chymney, chymne, from Old French cheminee, from Late Latin camīnāta, from Latin camīnus, from Ancient Greek κάμῑνος (kámīnos, “furnace”). Doublet of chimenea.

Pronunciation

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  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /ˈt͡ʃɪmni/, (proscribed) /ˈt͡ʃɪməni/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

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chimney (plural chimneys or (archaic) chimnies)

A chimney
  1. A vertical tube or hollow column used to emit environmentally polluting gaseous and solid matter (including but not limited to by-products of burning carbon- or hydrocarbon-based fuels); a flue.
    Synonym: (Northern England, Scotland) lum
    • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
      Our chimney was a square hole in the roof: it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way out, and the rest eddied about the house, and kept us coughing and piping the eye.
    • 1890, William Howard Russell, “Iquique to the Pampas”, in A Visit to Chile and the Nitrate Fields of Tarapacá, Etc., London: J[ames] S[prent] Virtue & Co., […], page 171:
      The external aspect of the oficina was not unlike that of a north-country coal or iron mine—tall chimneys and machinery, corrugated iron buildings, offices and houses, the shanties of workmen, a high bank of refuse.
    • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 112:
      Witches always anointed themselves with ointments before departing up the chimney to their Sabbaths.
  2. The glass flue surrounding the flame of an oil lamp.
    • 1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 22:
      By next winter he was spending every evening poring over the work of Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné on the French Reformation by the light of a little oil lamp, with a tiny cistern the size of an orange and no chimney[.]
  3. (British) The smokestack of a steam locomotive.
  4. A narrow cleft in a rock face; a narrow vertical cave passage.
  5. (vulgar, euphemistic) A vagina.
  6. (Northern Ireland, slang) A black eye; a shiner.

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Bengali: চিমনি (cimoni)
  • → Hindustani:
    → Hindi: चिमनी (cimnī)
    → Urdu: چِمْنی (cimnī)

Translations

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Verb

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chimney (third-person singular simple present chimneys, present participle chimneying, simple past and past participle chimneyed)

  1. (climbing) To negotiate a chimney (narrow vertical cave passage) by pushing against the sides with back, feet, hands, etc.

See also

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